Senior BJP leaders, including Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, asserted on Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will complete his full term if elected to power, refuting the Aam Aadmi Party's claim that Modi wants Shah to succeed him after turning 75 next year.
Ganesh Joshi also credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the smooth conclusion of Rahul Gandhi's Yatra in Jammu and Kashmir.
While the going for Dushyant Singh in Jhalawar is not tough, winning Jalore is a tough battle for Vaibhav Gehlot.
The plan to relieve NSG from VIP security tasks has been in the making since 2012 when NSG commanders foresaw an event where simultaneous terror attacks could be witnessed at one time on multiple centres in the country and the commandos will have to be rushed in different directions.
There is also speculation within the BJP that its national president J P Nadda, whose extended tenure will end by this month and who was among the leaders meeting Modi, may also be brought back in the government.
BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal mounted a blazing campaign in the hot summer after he was released from the Tihar jail on interim bail on May 10, drawing huge crowds at rallies and roadshows, but it proved insufficient to propel his Aam Aadmi Party past the Bharartiya Janata Party challenge in the national capital.
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
All Indian athletes who've qualified for the paralympic games
'Are we so ready to believe that in this country whose virtues we constantly shout from the rooftops, there is no single person -- other than Modi -- in a minimum of 272 elected MPs with the talent and ability to lead this country?' asks Prem Panicker.
During the Rath Yatra, Lord Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra and younger sister Subhadra are carried from their home temple to another temple, located in what is believed to be their aunt's home.
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
The news of Shah joining the Cabinet came from Gujarat BJP chief Jitu Vaghani, who tweeted a congratulatory message. "Had a courtesy meeting with our mentor Amit Shah and gave my best wishes to him on his inclusion as a strong member of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers," he tweeted.
This takes the number of suspended MPs in the Lok Sabha to 97.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday named 72 more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and former chief ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai.
12 of the 20 MPs with the highest winning margins in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have not been re-nominated by their parties for the 2024 general elections.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday reviewed the preparations for Cyclone Yaas including the evacuation of people on the high seas as well as in vulnerable coastal areas and the safety of COVID-19 facilities.
A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party scored big wins in three assembly polls, talk within the party shifted to the likely chief ministerial picks in these states, with senior leaders holding discussions on Monday.
The BJP is far more prepared than the Congress as their pool of prospective candidates is much bigger, reports Prakash Bhandari.
Banerjee said her microphone was stopped after five minutes, while other chief ministers were allowed to speak for longer durations.
Former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, was among 20 people named by the Central Bureau of Investigation in its charge sheet in the Tulsi Prajapati fake encounter case for allegedly entering into criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence.
While about 8,000 people are in the long list of invitees, the select list features 506 A-listers, including prominent politicians, leading industrialists, top film stars, sportspersons, diplomats, judges and high priests.
Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah has dissolved all its national cells pending their reconstitution and appointed Vijay Chauthaiwale as the new incharge of its foreign and Overseas Friends of BJP cell with immediate effect.
Some within the BJP see Amit Shah's entry into the Rajya Sabha as the party's succession plan for 2025 when Narendra Modi turns 75.
Dressed in colourful attire, members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday got their group photograph clicked in the old Parliament building, hours before legislative proceedings shift to the new Parliament House.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and a strong team of Union ministers figure in the list of the party's 40 star campaigners for Karnataka assembly elections next month.
Through gestures and decisions, the BJP high command has signalled that Raje may not be the lead actor but rather play a supporting role in a high-stakes election in its stamping ground.
With this, the total number of MPs suspended for unruly behaviour from the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha stands at an unprecedented 146 since December 14.
A voter turnout of 60.19 per cent was recorded till 5 pm in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday with sporadic incidents of violence in West Bengal.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Karnataka would vote on May 10, and the results will be declared on May 13.
Though the MLAs termed it a courtesy meeting, they said they will support Raje if the party leadership chooses her for the post in the state.
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
Facing opposition criticism over alleged inaction by the Delhi police during the violence last month, Shah appreciated the police for not allowing the riots to spiral.
The generational shift in the Bharatiya Janata Party was complete on Tuesday with its founders Atal Behari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi being dropped from the Parliamentary Board, the highest decision-making body, which has the stamp of Prime Minister Narendra Modi all over now.
Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray, who on Friday attended the swearing-in ceremony of Devendra Fadnavis government following a last-minute call from Amit Shah, held talks with the BJP president after the event.
Maidaan draws out more yawns than yays, observes Sukanya Verma.
While 30 of them were suspended for the remainder of the Winter Session, three were suspended pending the report of the Privileges Committee.
